


It's not Thanksgiving if you didn't have a lot of feelings about the whole thing or burn the turkey or sleep on somebody's couch or something

by Chokopoppo



Category: Johnny the Homicidal Maniac
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Depression, M/M, Motive Swap, Teacher-Student Relationship, Thanksgiving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-18
Updated: 2018-11-18
Packaged: 2019-08-25 14:13:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16662455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chokopoppo/pseuds/Chokopoppo
Summary: Nothing exciting has ever happened to Edgar Vargas. Despite his most ardent wishes and beliefs, this extends to his friendship with Jimmy Euridge, as well.A motive swap offshoot of DesdemonaKaylose's A Little More Comedy, where Jimmy is the one trying to get Edgar to live his best life. It goes about as well as you might expect.





	It's not Thanksgiving if you didn't have a lot of feelings about the whole thing or burn the turkey or sleep on somebody's couch or something

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DesdemonaKaylose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesdemonaKaylose/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Eternity in a Pickle Jar](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11352837) by [DesdemonaKaylose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesdemonaKaylose/pseuds/DesdemonaKaylose). 



> HAHAHA, I FINISHED IT. 
> 
> Man, this fic requires a lot of explanation, huh. Did y'all ever read Eternity in a Pickle Jar/A Little More Comedy and think, gee, this is nice, but I wish Jimmy was Kamina and Edgar was way sadder, and also they were old old men, and nobody did anything sexy forever? You sure didn't! Nobody did! But here they are anyway!
> 
> This is a birthday present for Dez, if the whole "for dez/inspired by dez/with dez/true to dez" thing didn't tip y'all off. I promised content: here is content. I did it after all, right on time, fuck the haters, let's mcfreaking lose it.

Edgar almost leaves three times before he gets to the door. He checks and double-checks the note scribbled on a receipt, the address, the apartment number, the place where he’s supposed to park—he sits in the car listening to the weather channel for several minutes, waiting to get the forecast which he left home without getting like an idiot. But the radio goes straight from _Alice’s Restaurant_ to ads for a bread machine that ‘ _Won’t kill you! Unless you put poison in there!_ ’, never once telling him if he can dip out now in anticipation of snow.

Staring at his reflection in a large mirror in the lobby, he fumbles dismally with the knot of his tie for what must be—the seventh time? He’d re-tied it four times at least in front of the mirror at home before just throwing that nice navy sweater on over it to hide the mess he’d made of the whole thing. He’d checked it twice in the car on the way over, once in the parking lot, and now here, unable to commit to an elevator that probably precedes the Kennedy administration. Right, just about seven, then. If he’d thought to wear a tie clip, this issue wouldn’t have come up at all. But Jimmy had said ‘informal’, hadn’t he? Tie clips don’t count as informal.

‘ _Neither does a seventy dollar sweater that you bought to wear on a date in 1989 and haven’t touched since,_ ’ a bitter little voice says from the back of his head. Edgar scowls, peers at his silhouette in the mirror again.

So it’s a nice sweater. That doesn’t mean anything. It’s time to get it out of the closet anyway. It’s cashmere, he _might_ be wearing it because it’s soft and comfortable.

That date had gone very well, dammit.

“Let me guess,” says a woman’s voice, and Edgar turns to realize with some surprise that it’s intended for him, “future in-laws? First meeting? Nerves coming right up out of your skin?”

The woman behind him is short, blonde, and pretty in an inoffensively ‘Georgia Peach’ kind of way. Young, too, probably not much older than most of his students. Despite himself, Edgar smiles, quietly endeared (as he always is) by the average youth’s tenacious desire to come off like they know everything. “Wrong on almost every count,” he admits, “I’m just meeting a friend. Practically as single as they come.”

“ _Really,_ ” she says, looking very interested all at once. She readjusts the collar of her blouse with thoughtless ease and steps forward towards the elevator, all teeth. “That is _so funny,_ because, like, so am _I._ Are you waiting for the elevator?” Without waiting for an answer, she reaches past him and hits the call button. “It is _so_ hard to find good men in California,” she grouses, “and on top of that, I’ve got _awful_ taste. I was supposed to fly out to Boston and meet the boyfriend’s parents for the holiday, and here I am!” She sighs. “He’s a son of a bitch.”

“You want to talk about it?”

“Nah, I’m okay,” she says. “Spending the night with some girlfriends and eating my feelings. Sweet of you to ask, though,” she adds, blinking Bambi eyes up at him.

“Um,” Edgar says, and is saved from having to say anything further by the arrival of the elevator. “Going up?”

“Oh, no thanks—I should take the stairs,” she says, “burn off some calories. Nice talking to you.” She turns to go—pauses at the foot of the stair—glances back over her shoulder. “By the way,” she adds, winking, “I like the sweater.”

And then she’s gone.

Edgar blinks, then sighs heavily and enters the elevator. “Just once,” he grouses to the closing doors, “I’d like to be hit on by someone my age.”

~~

The semester had begun more or less exactly as every semester for the previous eight years had gone. Edgar allowed himself to be bullied into taking on a larger course-load than his colleagues, practiced lectures. Cleaned his office.

Everything seems more or less set for the school year. Edgar doesn’t find his issue until about three weeks in, when he collects introductory two-page essays on the general philosophy of the Enlightenment period—nothing special, pretty high-school stuff, all told—and by then, it’s too late to pass it on to someone else.

Honestly, it was supposed to be an easy paper. An easy A to keep the freshmen’s helicopter parents off his back until younger, brighter-eyed professors can explain school policy to them for him. Which is why he knows his issue is an _issue._

The paper is almost unreadable. If there’s an argument in there, Edgar sure can’t find it. He can’t tell if it was written in ten sober minutes, or several coked-out hours, the night before it was due. After some fretting, Edgar forgoes an actual failing grade this early in the semester, but he grimaces through his own comments until he checks the name on the paper, and everything comes together.

Jimmy Euridge.

Jimmy Euridge is a problem student. Not a capital-P-capital-S Problem Student the way Nathaniel Underwood (with his torrid love life and excess of excuses and inability to _shut up_ during a lecture that Edgar wrote up to be timed to the _minute_ ) is a Problem Student. It’s just that he’s a bizarre conundrum of problems in a spiky hurricane of hair gel and motorcycle gear and Old Spice cologne.

He cuts an imposing, dark figure halfway up the rungs of the lecture hall, humorlessly scribbling notes and gazing at Edgar with an attentiveness that makes him _deeply_ uncomfortable. His academic track record turns up more than a few question marks and dead ends (does this guy even have a GED?), and the gaps in his resume look an awful lot like potential criminal activity. Or maybe he just thinks that because of all the tattoos. Anyway, it’s not like Edgar knows what potential criminal activity looks like. Or anything about it.

It would certainly be _exciting,_ though.

Not that crime pays, or that crime itself is exciting. Or that being in a room with a dangerous—er, _potentially_ dangerous criminal is an enviable position, by any means. And it probably doesn’t mean anything, the random moves, the string of jobs that don’t turn up in the phone book and the long (sometimes _very_ long) gaps between them. But…well…

Well, nothing exciting has ever happened to him. Exciting people don’t bother with scrubby professors like Edgar Vargas, who wears sweaters because his office is a little too cold and steams his five identical ties every Saturday. He’s worked the same job for eight years, teaching required courses for students who wish they were elsewhere the entire hour and a half he’s talking to them. It’s a better job than his time at the local high schools, a nice enough community college where he spends six or seven hours going from class to office hours to class again, and then he goes home to a little house in the suburbs.

But it’s a nice house, the sort of thing he can afford now that he’s salaried. It’s not like his life is empty. He’s got seven plants at home, five of which are still alive and three of which look like they’re going to continue being alive at _least_ until November.

He’s _fine._

Anyway, this was supposed to be about Jimmy Euridge and his horrible paper, Edgar thinks bitterly, tapping on the excel spreadsheet icon to bring the class roster forward on his desktop and actively ignoring the still-visible email client in the background, which is currently displaying a message from professor Necho about archaic pornography which he has no intention of answering. He has the kid’s email on file. He could send him a message…tell him to swing by the office to talk about it. Maybe they could have a stern conversation about taking academics seriously, which Euridge wouldn’t listen to. At the very least, Edgar could say he had _tried._

And he would be alone in his cramped office with the kid, which is—which would be—

Edgar closes the spreadsheet, subjecting himself once again to the subject line ‘ _Patroclus’ dick—powerpoint slide?’_ There’s a JPEG file, too, which he’s not going to open. No, he’s not going to email the kid. If he cares about the class, he’ll come up during office hours to discuss it of his own volition.

His hands shake.

 

 

 

Jimmy does come, without any warning, on a Wednesday afternoon in early October, three days after the grades go out. Edgar’s poking listlessly at the half-brown fern by his open window and watching the clock, counting down the minutes until his office hours are used up, and when he turns back, the kid is just there.

“ _Jesus,_ ” he says, and knocks over his empty glass.

Jimmy winces. “The door was open,” he says, almost—apologetically? “What kind of plant is that?”

“It’s a—fern,” Edgar says on default, clutching at his chest and desperately trying to drop his heart rate. “How can I, uh…what can I do for you?”

“Oh! Right,” he says, and reaches for his backpack on the floor next to his chair. “Well, you said in class we should come to see you if we had questions about the paper? I figured I would wait a few days so you weren’t in a rush with everyone else, but I have, uh, a lot of questions.”

He fishes a sheaf of paper out of the bag, and Edgar can see his own handwriting on it in red pen. His fingers lock together on the table—he bites the inside of his cheek and steels himself. Here it comes.

“So like,” Jimmy says, looking at the paper in his hands, brow furrowed, “was it, like…not…good?”

Edgar blinks.

“Because I thought I kind of nailed it,” he admits, apparently oblivious to Edgar’s shock, “I mean, I spent a lot of time on it. But I guess, like, I don’t really know what makes a paper good or bad? I haven’t really written anything academic since high school, which was…” he bites his lip and stares out the window behind Edgar pensively. “…What, four, five years ago? Longer, I guess. And even then I didn’t really get how to do it.” 

Edgar blinks.

“So…what…did I do wrong?” Jimmy asks.

Edgar chews on his cheek. He kind of expected to have a knife on his throat by now—or at least on his hand, or something. Is it because his desk is messy? Does Jimmy not want to climb over it? There _is_ some glassware, maybe if it shattered that would be incriminating evidence…he doesn’t watch enough crime shows to be predicting this kid’s behavior. He clears his throat. “Well,” he manages, “the assignment was a persuasive essay. Your argument wasn’t clearly presented. I actually couldn’t figure out what you were trying to say, which is a problem if you’re trying to convince me of something.”

Jimmy blinks. “I was supposed to argue something?”

“That’s…what a persuasive essay _is,_ ” he says, starting to flounder. This isn’t—this was supposed to go differently. Some deep part of his brain, which has been laying dormant for years, is starting to kick into high gear. His brief stint as a high school literature professor whispers into his ear that he has a struggling student in front of him, and only he has the power to make this right. “There are four basic types of essays: narrative, descriptive, expository, and persuasive. In a persuasive essay, you take a stance—an argument—and you try to explain why it’s right, and why the reader should agree with you. That’s what this assignment was.”

“Okay, wait,” Jimmy says, “so what are the other three? What are—I mean, how is that different from other—how do you tell them apart?”

Edgar’s opening his mouth to tell him that _it really doesn’t matter, we’re just working on this paper right now_ when that same little literature professor pings him behind the ear again. _’How long has it been,’_ it asks him, _’since somebody genuinely wanted to learn something from you?’_ He closes his mouth. Bites his cheek thoughtfully. “Okay, so essays are essentially a way to convey information,” he says, “while persuasive essays argue a point, that’s still just a way to explain something—but in that case, it’s an opinion based on facts. In an expository essay, you’re just talking about facts…here, you referenced Descartes…”

Jimmy leans in, and Edgar reaches down into that well inside him and pulls. There’s so much he has to say, and he lets it flow over the both of them as the time slides by.

At random, Edgar glances at the clock and realizes his office hours ended fifteen minutes ago. He makes his excuses and apologies. “We can talk more about this,” he says, “but I actually should go, I have class in half an hour and I need to go over my lesson plan.”

“Hey, no problem,” Jimmy says, “thanks for taking the time, I never got this help back in school. You don’t work weekends, yeah? Could I buy you a drink or something, take some extra time to talk about this?”

“Sorry,” Edgar says, and he is a little sorry, “I like to keep my work in this office. It keeps things from following me home.”

“Hey, that’s no problem,” he says, smiling, “then maybe I can buy you a drink and not talk about work.”

Edgar’s mouth goes dry.

“No, I, uh,” he manages, wishing desperately that he hadn’t finished his water two hours ago, “I can’t, uh, do that. Sorry. I can’t.”

“Oh. Why?”

“Wh—because you’re my student,” he says, “I can’t see you outside of school in anything but a thoroughly professional context until you’ve finished the course.”

“Oh! I thought that was just for high school,” Jimmy says, snapping his fingers. His whole continence lights up. “Hey, then all I have to do is wait to graduate this course, right? Finish. Finish this course. That’s only, what, three months?” He’s grinning as he gathers up his coat and bag. “There it is! December! It’s a date!”

“What? No, it’s not,” Edgar says, standing up at his desk—but Jimmy is already moving towards the door.

“Ope, you can’t convince me I’m wrong if you can’t catch me,” he says cheerfully, “I’m leaving, and taking my certainty with me!”

“No! What? Jimmy, what?”

The door shuts, leaving Edgar’s protests to fall on deaf ears—or, more accurately, deaf wood. After a moment he slumps into his seat, face hot, glasses all but fogging up.

Not a single word of that was how that interaction was supposed to go. He wondered idly if Jimmy even _owned_ a knife. Maybe he hadn’t even ever threatened anyone.

 

 

 

They meet with pretty astounding frequency as the semester slips along, as the days get shorter and the walk from the parking lot gets colder. Edgar’s office isn’t properly heated like the rest of the building, and the temptation to meet in the cafe downstairs on the first floor of the building grows strong. But the office gives him protection—Jimmy is interested in learning, for sure, but it’s becoming apparent that he’s also interested in Edgar. Very interested in Edgar. Unshakably interested in Edgar.

“Hey, I’m going down to the Bearclaw to get a drink after this,” Jimmy tells him, late in October, when Edgar is halfway through reading his most recent rough draft for the next assignment. “You wanna come with? I have a car that like, mostly works.”

“Why do you keep asking?”

“Uh, ‘cause maybe you’ll forget about professionalism this time and come with?” He grins.

“No, I mean—“ Edgar presses a finger to his forehead. “Why are you asking _me?_ There are people your age, you’re _at_ a college. You know, people with more…common interests with you.”

“Yeah, but I like you.”

“But _why?_ ” Edgar throws a hand up. “There are more interesting people in your peer group. There are more interesting professors! I happen to know that Professor Necho is currently lecturing on the history of prostitution with some deeply inappropriate visual aids not a two-minute elevator trip from here. I…wear sweaters. I mean, it’s all very flattering, but I don’t understand it.”

“I like sweaters,” Jimmy says. “Are you okay? You seem…not okay.”

“I’m fine,” Edgar says, sighing, and pokes at the dead fern sitting by the window. “I’m always fine.”

 

It’s not always about the work. Jimmy is interested—really _interested_ in learning, but he’s also a bit of a motor mouth. If Edgar lets him go, he’ll just _go._

“I never got a good education in high school,” he admits once, early in November, “I mean, I went to a good school, we had good teachers, all that shit, but I was struggling a lot. Real self-destructive, real Problem Student stuff. Plus I was having a lot of trouble at home. I finished school, but that was like a—what do you call it? When they pass you ‘cause they don’t want to deal with you anymore?”

“A gentleman’s C?”

“That’s it. They gave me a gentleman’s C and kicked me out the door. And I knew I didn’t know shit, but back then I didn’t care about that at all. I was just like, I gotta get out of this place. I just started working, trying to make money, living on my own. Nicking shit from grocery stores, whatever.” He stares up at the bookshelves across the room, lost in thought. Edgar, who has long since finished writing feedback notes, crosses his arms on the table and leans forward, head to one side. “I was pretty miserable back then. And I started to think, why is all this bullshit I put up with my whole life still on me? Like, I knew people mistreated me, I knew I didn’t deserve what I got—and I was just like, why am I letting this sit on my shoulders? It's not my fault and it’s not my problem. I was like, I need a goal. You know?”

Edgar nods. He thinks about his little house, handsome and brick-lined and well-heated and clean. The kind of house his parents could never have lived in, could never have afforded. A good job. A good house. “You wanted an education?”

“Yeah! Yeah, I wanted—it’s not just the school thing, though,” he insists. “If I just wanted to go to school, I could’ve gone wherever. My family has connections. Like, a lot of people in my family graduated from the same school, that kind of thing.”

“Legacy students.”

“Yeah, exactly. But that doesn’t _mean_ anything,” he says, “if I didn’t work for it, I’m just relying on shitty people who got me in. I didn’t want an education to have the education, I wanted—I wanted to _earn_ it. I needed to do something that mattered. That’s why I’m doing community college. I mean, I also have like, no money for school, but _mostly_ it’s totally my choice, respect my journey and my goals.”

Edgar smiles—he laughs, a little. “You sound like a true Californian,” he admits, when Jimmy blinks at him, “sorry, I know it’s not funny.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you laugh,” he says, “you always look so serious.”

“I’m not serious,” Edgar says, feeling a little confused. “I mean. I don’t _think_ I’m serious. Am I too serious? Is this because of the sweaters?”

“It’s not bad,” he says reassuringly, “it’s just different. You have a good laugh. You should smile more.”

“Well—that’s—you shouldn’t say that,” he says, feeling hot under the collar, “that has—implications that you don’t really wanna—“

“But that’s only when weird guys say it to ladies they don’t know,” Jimmy insists, “it’s not weird if it’s just two friends encouraging each other to live better, happier lives.”

“That’s not—“ Edgar starts to say, and then stops. “I…friends? Are we friends?”

“How are we not?” Jimmy shrugs. “I’m here like literally every day, I just revealed scant exposition about my tragic backstory, you laughed at a joke I made…we’re friends. The pact is sealed.”

“You ask me out every day,” Edgar says, which he intends to follow with _and I’m your professor,_ but Jimmy heads him off at the pass.

“Yeah, I’m also asking you out every day! Did I do that today? Wouldn’t wanna break tradition. You have a nice smile! Wanna let me buy you dinner at an IHOP?”

Edgar snorts.

“I’m _kidding,_ ” he says, “I would take you somewhere _classy._ Waffle House.”

“ _Waffle House,_ oh my _God,_ ” Edgar says, snickering as his head sinks into his hand. “Please never take me to Waffle House. Promise me you will never—Jimmy, promise me you will never take me to Waffle House.”

Jimmy makes a _pshhh_ noise with his mouth. “Fine then. You tell _me_ where we’re going on this date, oh man of a thousand opinions.”

“We’re not going on a date,” Edgar says. _’Yet,’_ adds something in the back of his brain. He ignores it.

 

 

 

As the days get shorter, the evenings get longer. Edgar stays out later. There’s a few bars near the campus, no prize for guessing why, and he rotates around them by night. He knows some of the staff, but not enough for them to consider him a regular.

It’s hard to go home once the snow starts. But he’s survived winters before. He’s slept alone in his bed in Decembers past.

He always makes it to the spring. That’s more than he can say for everyone.

 

 

 

In retrospect, it was probably the wrong call to be honest with Jimmy about the break.

“What are you doing for Thanksgiving?” Jimmy asks him, and like an idiot, Edgar answers honestly. He admits he’s spending it alone, that he doesn’t have much family in the area, that he usually bundles up inside and writes up the final. And Jimmy doesn’t _say_ anything, but he looks…worried.

Edgar does not need a worried Jimmy on his conscience.

All things considered, he probably shouldn’t be surprised when Jimmy comes bolting after him at the end of the last Tuesday lecture before the break. That doesn’t stop him from startling when a piece of paper is shoved into his hands.

“Look,” Jimmy says, “I know you can’t—uh, what’s the word—fraternize with students, I get it’s probably against policy. But I also don’t care about that. I’m having a thing at my apartment, it’s just a couple people I’ve known for years. You should come. For dinner.”

“Uh, I—“ Edgar stumbles, stares down at the paper in his hands. There’s an address scribbled haphazardly on it.

“You don’t have to,” he surges on, “I’m not making you do anything. But I don’t think you should be alone on Thanksgiving. I’m pulling friendship privileges. If you’re worried about—work—I won’t tell anyone if you won’t. But also, I think Necho is literally sleeping with his TA, and no one gives him crap about it.”

“Weird note to end on,” Edgar says, although he secretly agrees. “Look, I can’t—I’m not promising anything.”

“You don’t _have_ to,” Jimmy repeats, “but just think about it. Okay?” He touches Edgar’s upper arm briefly. “You deserve to be happy sometimes. Everyone does.”

~~

Edgar double checks the apartment door number on his note three times—which to him is a marked improvement over the mess he made with the sweater—before he knocks. It’s not even that he would be embarrassed if he got the wrong door, not more than a ‘oh I’m sorry, I thought I was going to a college rager, have you heard one somewhere?’ sort of mistake, so he’s not sure why he’s so nervous. Well, he _is_ pretty sure. He just doesn’t like how sure he is.

Not that he needs to be. The door opens to reveal the woman from the lobby, this time her blouse opened to reveal a tank top underneath. She looks him up and down, which he doesn’t enjoy for even a second, and cracks a smile. “Hey there,” she says, “long time no see.”

“Uh,” Edgar says.

“I’m Clarissa,” she says, and holds out a hand, “I guess I really should introduce myself now. You a friend of Jimmy’s? Jimmy a friend of yours?”

“Jimmy a _girlfriend_ of _yours?_ ” he shoots back in automatic retort, feeling a little vulnerable, but Clarissa just laughs. “Sorry,” he adds, “I’m nervous. Uh, it’s Edgar.”

Her eyes flash. “Edgar, huh,” she says, “well, get in here. Jimmy! Edgar’s here!”

The apartment is a flurry of motion, a small but handsomely decorated four-roomer stuffed practically to the brim with people Edgar’s never met, a handful of rough-looking young men with faces full of metal who turn to look at him with interest as he steps through the threshold. Uncomfortable with meeting their eyes, he hurriedly glances at anything he can catch attention to—the bare-brick walls, the softly orange overhead lighting, the small island separating the kitchen from the rest of the room—Jimmy in the kitchen in a sweat-soaked white tee shirt, looking at him with a spark in his eyes and a slowly growing smile. “Hey!” He says, shoves the towel in his hands into the chest of one of the other men with a curt “Chuey, you’re on it, help him out—“ before bounding over and throwing an unexpected and thoroughly unprofessional pair of arms around Edgar’s chest. “I’m so glad you made it, man.”

“Uh, hey,” Edgar says, stomach warming with the contact, “my pleasure. I, uh, I brought wine, I hope that’s okay.”

“Oh shit!” Jimmy says, pulling back (his hands still on Edgar’s upper arms, they’re still on his arms, he isn’t letting _go_ and should Edgar pull back too or is that weird?) and gazing attentively at the bottle. “That’s that _good_ shit! You’re too good for this world—uh, should I put this in the freezer or something?”

Edgar’s face feels superheated. “Oh, no, it’s red—it can be room temperature,” he explains, “you only chill white wine, red just needs to breathe first.”

“I hope it doesn’t need to breathe that much, ‘cause we’re pretty close to food. Right?” He calls over his shoulder. One of the boys in the kitchen flips him the bird. “Oh! Uh, yeah, right, that’s, uh, you’ve met Clarissa already,” he says, pointing, “and over there in the kitchen is Chico, ‘cause he’s the only one who knows how to cook anything except, like, potatoes—the potatoes were my idea,” he adds, swelling with pride like a bird of paradise, “uh, the dude who _is not going to take his fuckin’ shirt off in my place, thank you very much_ is Chuey— _dude I literally just said no, fuckin’ quit it—_ uh, and uh, Fish is—Fish said he was gonna set the table, so, uh…” he pauses to stare at the glorified card table, a little thing of scraped up green paint and chipping wood which is most certainly _not_ set, and is furthermore not being attended to by any person, or even any fish. “Uh, so, I’m not—totally sure where he is right now,” he says at last. “You’ll know him when you see him. Big tall guy.”

“Sure,” Edgar says. It’s quite warm in the apartment, and it smells overpoweringly— _fantastically_ —of something savory and mustardy. He’s reminded of the single-story home he’d once lived in with his parents as a child, back when they were first moving and had a place small enough that the smell of cooking touched every last corner of peeling wallpaper. He’s starting to think the sweater, while nice for the frozen weather outside, won’t be lasting long inside. “Anything I can do to help?”

“Good question,” Jimmy says, now peering at the wine bottle with some fascination, “Chico, you need any help?”

“Jimmy, my man, you ain’t got no hot pads for the table,” one of the boys calls back, “or good serving dishes. Where did Fish go?”

“Where does Fish _ever_ go? He’s somewhere.”

“Can someone move these onto the table? I’m just going to put everything in fucking cereal bowls, dude, you’re a mess.”

Edgar brightens and reaches out with both hands. “I got it,” he says, eager for something to get him out of the doorway. “Should I worry about a tablecloth or something?”

“Uh, I don’t think I even own one,” Jimmy says, looking a little chagrined. “Should I put a sheet down or something?”

“I mean, you don’t _need_ one, but it’ll keep the table from getting stained,” Edgar says, right before wanting to drag his hand down his face. The table is so deeply, ridiculously stained, that’s such a dumb thing to—

“ _I’ve got a sheet,_ ” calls a voice from another room, and Probably-Fish (that, or an intruder attracted through the window by the smell) comes bounding out, “make room!”

“What the fuck,” Jimmy says, “why were you _in_ there?”

“Did you know only two windows in your entire apartment open?” Fish says conversationally, throwing the orange makeshift-tablecloth over the table with ease. “It’s like ninety degrees in this room and negatives outside, I thought we could get some equilibrium of not sweating our own skin off in here.”

“Sweating is what makes it fun!” Jimmy snaps. “Anyway, if you wanted a breeze I could’ve opened the balcony door.”

“It’s like fucking _Gravity_ in here,” Clarissa complains, “I’m putting some fucking music on.”

“Hey!” Jimmy hollers, fumbling around in drawers for a bottle opener, “there’s a tape by the player, I don’t wanna listen to your trap remixes or Madonna or whatever. It’s a fucking family holiday, let’s keep it fucking _classy._ ”

It’s a wave of noise, young people talking over each other and bickering—Edgar carries various bowls to the table and lets it wash over him, soaks the sound into himself. He stops Jimmy from taking his own eye out with a corkscrew and gives an impromptu lesson on how to use a three-part opener to three fascinated twenty-somethings. He pulls off the sweater and rolls up the sleeves of his button-down. He avoids eye contact with Jimmy’s friend Chuey, who _despite_ his wishes is fully shirtless, practically oiled in sweat, and covered in tattoos, and who keeps offering Edgar a cigarette and winking at him. He smiles with all his teeth. He laughs.

“Okay, I have no idea how this turned out,” Chico says, his voice stuffed with anticipation and pride under the frustration, “I’ve never done a whole bird before, and your oven _seriously_ sucks, so I’m just going to try and carve it and if it isn’t cooked we just cut it all up into sandwich meat and have sadness-Thanksgiving, and that’s all there is to say about that.”

Clarissa wolf-whistles at the incision. Fish claps. Edgar lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding and offers to help carry the platter to the table, which is so small he’s half-afraid it’s going to bend under the weight.

It sounds like laughter. The room is hot except for the skinny slice of cold air that brushes past from outside every so often. Edgar’s shoulders are crushed between Clarissa and Chuey, and across from him, Jimmy is animated by some internal illumination, pink and sweating and glowing from the inside out. There’s cheap beer and expensive wine, and Edgar tries everything, even the things Chuey apologizes for having burned when Chico wasn’t looking, even the things Clarissa dramatically spits out, even the PBR that couldn’t have cost Fish more than ten dollars for the pair of six-packs. The speakers that Jimmy has often told Edgar he built and prizes play a soft tune he could probably place if his mind wasn’t so present in the conversation. The tune sounds like a memory of his mother holding his father by the shoulders in the TV room, giggling at something private shared between them, unaware of his presence, swaying to something on the radio late at night.

He politely declines a dance request from Clarissa, and two songs later, another one from Chuey (who takes rejection with a little more resistance than she), and he drains wine and cracks jokes he hasn’t had the opportunity to trot out in more than a decade. Jimmy laughs, he’s pink in the cheeks from the alcohol and the smile that hasn’t left his face in hours. Edgar’s limbs go supple and heavy with comfort.

“Hey, this is the best one,” Jimmy insists, “you’ve been saying no all night—well, at least for like, three cassettes—you gotta dance with somebody, and if it’s _gotta_ be me—well, I’m the host, I’ll take this one.”

“What? Oh, no,” Edgar says laughing, “no, I can’t—I can’t dance, I don’t know—“

“Come on, there’s nothing to it,” Jimmy wheedles, “seriously! It’s fucking slow music—don’t laugh! You don’t even have to move your feet, you just stand there and shift from one foot to the other. Come on!”

“No, no, I—Jimmy!”

Jimmy, professional Problem Student who has never listened to the word ‘no’ in his life, has gotten to his feet and is pulling Edgar to his bodily, hanging onto his elbow. Edgar would protest a little harder, if he wasn’t laughing, if it wasn’t so warm in here, and suddenly they’re standing together in front of the couch. There’s an arm around his waist, a chest against his. The gentle tenor coming from the speakers murmurs that he _loves you, for sentimental reasons_. Jimmy smells like sweat and beer and cinnamon, and he’s staring at Edgar like he’s, like he’s…like he’s something worth staring at. He doesn’t have the words to describe it.

“I’m glad you came,” Jimmy says, “I sort of figured you wouldn’t.”

“I almost didn’t,” he admits, “thank you for inviting me. You were right. This is nice.”

“You were right, too,” he says, “you aren’t very serious.”

He puts his head on Edgar’s shoulder, and something warm and surging slides its way up his back. There’s something so familiar about all this, there’s something he’s supposed to be saying no to. But he’s got more than a bottle of wine sloshing around in him somewhere, and he can feel Jimmy breathing on his neck, slow and even. The back of his shirt is soft in Edgar’s hand.

“I’m drunk,” he admits, and Jimmy huffs a laugh.

“Yeah, I know,” he says. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”

Edgar peers over into the kitchen. “Maybe I should help with cleanup—I don’t want to leave everything to you—“

“Forget about it,” he says, “stay here. Chuey can do it.”

“I didn’t help make anything,” Edgar admits, “I feel bad.” He runs the flat of his palm half an inch up Jimmy’s back before catching himself.

“Do it tomorrow. If you’re drunk, I’m not letting you drive home.”

“I’m not going to sleep with you.”

“Sleep on the couch,” Jimmy says, “the guys are gonna take the floor in my room—they’re probably already there—and Clarissa called a taxi like half an hour ago. I’ve got those super big blankets. The puffy ones. You won’t even notice you’re sleeping in the living room.”

Edgar glances around the room. He hadn’t even noticed they were alone. Well, that’d be the red wine, then. “What time is it?”

Jimmy shrugs. “Late. Everyone’s crashing.” He straightens up, takes his weight off Edgar. “I’ll go grab a comforter,” he says, “song’s over anyway. Stay right here.”

He disappears out of Edgar’s arms into one of the closed rooms, returning moments later with a copious armful of blanketing, which he throws victoriously down onto the couch. “Just _look_ at this puffy motherfucker,” he says proudly, “you’re gonna be warm as _shit._ I’m kind of jealous.”

“You going to bed?”

“Yeah, I’m beat,” Jimmy admits, shrugging. “I had a shift this morning, so I’ve been up since like six. Plus cleaning this place. I don’t mind telling you, it’s usually kind of a rat’s nest.”

“I like the lights,” Edgar says, “it feels very…familiar. Lived-in. It’s nice.”

Jimmy brightens. “I wanted it to feel like home,” he says, “I grew up in a place that most emphatically did _not_ feel like a home. This place is small, but it’s mine.”

Edgar smiles. “Yeah.”

Jimmy’s so close to him—he could reach out and pull him closer, the cassette is still playing something slow and soft, and he’s watching his eyes. Jimmy has grey eyes. He’d never noticed before. It hadn’t seemed _appropriate_ to notice before, so he just hadn’t.

“I’ll get out of here,” he says, and Edgar blinks, “let you get some sleep without me staring at you.” He smiles and slinks back towards his room. “Thanks for coming,” he adds over his shoulder, “I needed someone who’d bring a little class to the rest of us.”

With a wink, he’s gone. Edgar watches him go, smiling, and curls up under the cover.

Even with the lights out, the room has a soft glow to it from the streetlights just outside the windows. There’s a low light over the stovetop that wouldn’t go out, no matter how many times he hit the power button, which drenches the dark room in an overtone of orange.

The blanket is warm, and soft. The room is warmer. It still smells like cooking turkey and spice and all the rest. The blanket smells like Jimmy—he probably pulled it off his own bed. It’s familiar…he pulls it close to his face. It’s probably best he didn’t do anything rash, but a part of him is tempted to—was tempted, _was_ tempted to pull him back into his arms. He melts into the cushions of the couch. He can’t remember a time when he was this happy.

Actually…he stares out the window and watches fat flakes of snow falling, almost lit by the light of the sky. Actually, he can.

It crashes down on him like a wave on the shore, shocking his skin and chilling him to the bone. What does he think he’s _doing?_ He knows what his life is like. He remembers Damien. He remembers the winter.

There’s a hole boring through his chest. He can’t breathe.

Stupid, stupid, he’s so goddamn stupid—Jimmy has a life, Jimmy has the kind of life a man claws his way up for. He worked hard for this. What did Edgar work hard for? An empty house and an empty job. A pathetic shell of a life. This place is lived in, this place is loved, and Edgar is coveting it, he’s trying to steal it away from the inside out. 

What does Edgar do for anyone? What has he ever done for people? He throws himself on the ground and lets them walk all over him, and anyone who tries to help him up gets hit by the wave. He’s alone because he’s _supposed_ to be alone, that house is empty because he doesn’t _deserve_ —it isn’t fair, but it’s never been about that.

His parents are dead. Damien is dead. He’s never been able to help anyone. Jimmy looks at him—Jimmy stares at him with winter eyes like he’s important, like he’s ready to throw his life away. Bad things happen to people who get close to Edgar. He knows that. He knows that, and he let Jimmy get close anyway.

The blanket is thick, and Edgar buries himself in it, holds it close around his head. In this place that feels like home and smells like him, this awful, beautiful midnight place, he buries himself and cries.

~~

Edgar does what he does best: he runs.

It’s easy enough to avoid being in his office during office hours. He calls in sick for a lecture once, and avoids sticking around after class for any follow-up questions. He doesn’t make eye contact with the kid for a week and a half in class, blows him off once or twice when he manages to catch up.

He drinks. More than he used to. More than he should.

If he can just shake him loose—there’s still time, he can still sever this. He sits in a bar he knows all too well on a Sunday night, drinking a cocktail he doesn’t like but already paid for, and thinks. Maybe if he’s just…horribly unlikeable, the kid might get bored? But how could he be more unlikeable than he already is?

"Hey, professor Vargas," says a familiar voice, and Edgar looks up in shock to see Jimmy Euridge leaning one elbow on the bar, "what a surprise. You come here often?”

"I don't...that's not," he says, "why are you here? It's not close to your apartment, or the school—ah, are you with friends?”

“Just you,” he says. Belatedly, Edgar notices he’s wearing a loose sweatshirt, rolled up to just under the elbows. It makes his wrists look fragile. He looks down at his drink.

“That’s nice of you,” he says vaguely, avoiding Jimmy’s eyes, “but we aren’t really…how did you find this place, anyway? Did you…internet it, or something? What’s that called, Yelp? Did you Yelp it?” He takes a sip.

"Nah, I followed you here," he replies, still smiling easily.

"You _what?_ ”

"What're you drinking?” Jimmy says, wiping part of what Edgar _was_ drinking off the front of his sweatshirt. “Smells like Buffet’s Margaritaville. I’m more of a whiskey sours guy. You want one? Looks like you’re almost done with that.”

“Did you just say you were _following_ me?”

“I’m taking that as a yes,” Jimmy says, grinning, and swings an arm up over his head. The bartender waves her hand at him, a ‘ _wait right there_ ’ motion that sends Edgar into a panic. He _cannot_ let Jimmy buy him a drink, that is _so_ unprofessional, he—

More unprofessional than sleeping on his couch? Sniffing his blankets like a freak?

“I can’t let you buy me a drink,” he says, acting through the mortification and grabbing Jimmy by the upper arm to get his attention. Blacksmith arms, he remembers too late, skinny but hard as iron. His face burns. “It’s not—I’m still your teacher, it’s a, it could be seen as a bribery thing, it’s not professional—“

“Yeah, yeah,” Jimmy says, “fine, then. You want an orgasm?”

Edgar stares at him. "You better be talking about the shot," he says.

Jimmy laughs. "That's not a no!" he crows, and leans over the bar to wave at the bartender. Edgar pretends to be relieved. He lets go of Jimmy’s arm and tries not to think about how it felt wrapped around him.

How is Jimmy here—Edgar is such a fucking mess right now, he’s two glasses in and his tie isn’t even on right, and Jimmy is—he’s wearing fucking cologne, Edgar can smell it from here. Why is he _smelling_ him? Shit. Shit shit shit. This cannot be happening.

He takes another swig.

“So I haven’t seen you much the past few weeks,” Jimmy says conversationally, after passing the bartender a fiver and complimenting her tattoos, “I came by for your office hours today, and, uh, last Thursday? And that Tuesday, but you weren’t in. You haven’t been in for a couple days. Busy?”

Edgar swallows. That smell—he can almost see the snow against the orange half-light of nighttime in the city, that whole place smelled like him—it’s coming upon him with a violence, the warmth of a thick blanket in a half-heated house… “Uh, yeah,” he says, and tries not to focus on the chipping black paint on Jimmy’s nails, “I’m sorry, I should always be in the office during those times, but I’ve been working on midterms’ stuff…I’m way behind, I should’ve handed those back two class periods ago…you know, I really should be home, working on that,” he manages. He moves to put his glass down on the counter.

“Are you serious?” Jimmy says. The smile is slipping. “Dude, you’re _literally_ drunk, right now. You want to leave this bar so you can _go home_ and _grade papers?_ ”

“Um.” Edgar says. “Yes?”

Jimmy laughs humorlessly. “Can you cut the bullshit? For a minute? For a fucking _second?_ Can you just talk to me like a person?”

There it is. Or, more accurately, here it comes. Edgar looks down at the bar and waits…he had hoped, he had hoped they could have avoided this, he had hoped he could have just slipped out of Jimmy’s life forever. He should have known better. He knows Jimmy, after all. They couldn’t have ended anything without a fight. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, but without much behind it.

He’s tired. If he grits his teeth, this can be over quick.

“I know you’re avoiding me,” Jimmy says, and Edgar flinches. The smile is off his face. “If you want me to piss off, that’s fine, but fucking _tell_ me. You’re not a twelve-year-old girl, or my fucking stepmom trying to wring something else out of my dad, you’re fucking better than that.”

Despite himself, and despite his shame, Edgar glances up at Jimmy, who’s glaring intently and very close to him. “I didn’t know you had a stepmother,” he says vaguely.

“Yeah, cause she’s a monster and I cut her out of my life, _unambiguously,_ ” Jimmy snaps, “I don’t talk about her because I don’t fucking want to, ever again, and I’m _not_ going to talk about her _now._ ”

Their shots arrive. Edgar breaks eye contact and gives the bartender the first bill he can get out of his pocket. She glances at Jimmy, reads the room like a professional, and gets the hell out of the way.

Jimmy is still looking at him. Edgar can feel the eyes on his face—he can’t look back—he stares down at the shots. They’re pale. Kind of cream colored. Which, yeah, okay, maybe he should’ve expected that.

“Why are you avoiding me?” Jimmy says. Some of the anger is draining out of his voice, and his shoulders are looser than before. He makes no move towards the shots. “Just tell me. I want to fix it, but I can’t if you won’t tell me what I did wrong.”

Edgar looks up at him. “Oh, _shit,_ ” he says, snatches one of the glasses off the bar, and miserably slams it like it’s the end of the world. “You didn’t do shit, okay? It’s not you, I can’t believe—I don’t—“ he covers his eyes with his hand and groans. “I’m _cursed,_ ” he says helplessly, “I don’t want you near me because I, because bad things happen to people I care about, and I, you are—“ he hisses, and sets the glass down on the countertop far harder than he meant to. “You have a future ahead of you,” he says, “if you waste your time with me, something bad’s going to happen to you, and I can’t—I can’t do that to anyone else anymore.”

“Bad shit already happened to me,” Jimmy says. “It ain’t gonna get worse because of you. I can promise that as a whole-ass guarantee.”

Edgar buries a fist in his hair. “Why do you _care?_ ” He asks. “Why does it _matter_ if I stay or if I go?”

“What?”

“Don’t—God, Jimmy, wake up! _Look_ at me!” He throws an arm out, catches a glance of Jimmy’s expressionless face as his eyes move from the bar to the restaurant. “I’m a fucking mess! I’m a shitshow! I took a job I don’t care about so I could live in a house I don’t like, because it would impress the kind of people who wouldn’t want anything to do with me! Are you drinking this?” He points at the second shot, grabs it before Jimmy can say anything, and downs it in one go. “I have four bars I go to on rotation based on when their different bartenders are working, so that no one knows that I’m at a bar every night, but the only reason I indulge in _bullshit_ subterfuge is because I know if I didn’t, nobody would fucking care! Nobody sees me. Nobody worries about me. Seven years of teaching and I only managed to get a good kid killed because I walked into his life and cared about him. I’m not _doing_ that again.”

He only catches Jimmy’s face for a second, and it startles him. He expected to see…hurt. Anger, maybe, or shock. Disgust? Confusion? But he doesn’t. He doesn’t see _anything._ He presses his face back into his palm again, ashamed.

“You feel better?” Jimmy asks. “Got it all out of your system?”

“Please go,” he mumbles, miserable.

“Edgar, hey,” Jimmy says, and Edgar feels an arm snake up his torso and catch him softly by the collar of his shirt. He blinks, lets Jimmy pull him upright in a kind of daze. “Look at me.”

Edgar looks at him. Freckles, acne. Piercings. Grey eyes.

“Okay,” Jimmy says, “grit your teeth.”

“Wh—“ Edgar manages, right before Jimmy hits him.

It’s a solid punch across the jaw, strong and deafening. The hand on his collar keeps him from flying anywhere, but the same can’t be said for his glasses, which evacuate their place on the top of his head post-haste and bounce on the counter. Someone is yelling—multiple someones are yelling—the bartender’s voice comes through, low and booming, and Jimmy’s answering tone, loud and shrill—a strong arm slings itself over his shoulders and pulls him off the barstool and through a crowd of shifting people. High and strong, his hearing focuses on Jimmy, near him, dragging him towards the door and cursing someone out. Edgar stumbles, reaches towards his face to readjust his glasses. He can’t find them. “What the hell,” he manages.

“Feeling better?” Jimmy asks.

“You _hit_ me,” Edgar says, touching his cheek blearily. Everything’s coming back to him in screeching half-tones, muted here and resonant there.

“Fuck, dude, I sure _did,_ ” Jimmy says, “are you done?”

“With getting _hit?_ I guess that’s up to you,” Edgar says, focusing suddenly on his student, who is dragging him outside into the freezing cold without even grabbing his coat like a miserable little brat— “what is your problem?”

“My _problem?_ My problem is that every time something touches you wrong, you spiral,” Jimmy snarls, “you won’t talk to me because you’re _cursed_? Are you _kidding_ me? You’re catastrophizing!” He whirls around and plants his feet in the snow, grabbing Edgar by both shoulders. “You think just because you hate yourself that everyone else has to hate you too! Well, I _don’t,_ Edgar Vargas. I am not some stupid kid who’s going to go to pieces in your hands. I am the sunshine future! I am your fucking _friend!_ I am tougher than the river of shit I had to swim through, and you are too, whether you believe it or not! So stop martyring yourself for one goddamn second, and look me in the fucking eye, and honestly tell me what you want for once in your life!”

Everything in Edgar’s body is frozen. They’re so close now, nothing but clouds of breath between them in the November air. Jimmy’s eyes are wide, bright, desperate—but underneath all that, there’s something hard, something forged out of blood and iron and bitter, gritted survival.

How did he ever think that those hard edges were ugly, how could he have been so blind—the spots, the jagged lines of the eyebrows, the chipped nails—lean lines, perfect eyes. Grey and clear.

Edgar’s fingers find the hands on his shoulders, wrap nervously around the wrists. “…I still want to be near you,” he says, and feels hands relax underneath his own. “I don’t want you to leave me alone.” He stares, slightly bleary without his glasses, into Jimmy’s face. “I don’t want to be alone again,” he admits, “but more than that, I want…I want you to stay in my life.”

Jimmy’s eyes move a few spare millimeters, back and forth over his face. “Okay,” he says, “that’s a start.” And he smiles.


End file.
